The Boy On The Swings
by Bella Gilies
Summary: Every Sunday Hermione trudges the familar path to the local park. Yet today is different. A mysterious boy sits huddled on the swings. After a lot of badgering Hermione manages to get him to open up. Could this be the start of a beautiful friendship?
1. Chapter 1: A Day At The Park

****The Boy On the Swings****

**Bella Gillies**

**Chapter 1: A Day At The Park**

"C'mon Mummy, it's time to go!" Hermione called over her shoulder as she rushed out the door, only pausing to grab her coat off the hook on the wall.

"I'm coming, I'm coming." Her Mother replied, warily trudging down the hall after her daughter.

"Well come faster!" Hermione complained, hopping on one foot as she attempted to quickly slip on her shoe.

Her mother watched for a few seconds with amusement before going to help.

"No Mum! I can do it myself." Hermione said angrily. She attempted to push her mother away but instead ended up falling flat on her bottom. Her Mother laughed, earning a death glare from Hermione.

"C'mon 'Mione, let me help you" Jean Granger insisted sitting in front of her daughter, shoe in hand. Hermione merely crossed her arms and legs and looked away pointedly. Jean, shaking her head at her daughter's stubbornness, tried unsuccessfully to prise one of Hermione's legs towards her so she could fit her shoe.

"I thought you wanted to go to the park?" Jean baited. Hermione slowly turned her head to look at her mother.

"Can we go to the library after?" she asked hopefully

"Oh fine", her Mother sighed, "But you'd better think about which books you want to get because if we get there and then have to wait an hour while you decide I won't be happy."

"Pinkie promise?" Hermione asked suspiciously.

Jean nodded "Pinkie promise."

"Then shake!" Hermione demanded uncrossing her arms and extending one outwards. Jean smiled and took her daughters tiny hand in hers.

"Now may I please help you put on your shoe?"

"Fine." Hermione huffed. Jean slipped the pair of little yellow flats onto her daughter's foot,

"Let's go." She said and pulled Hermione to her feet

XXX

The walk to the park wasn't a very long one. It was only a couple of blocks from their house. Hermione had walked it many times before. It was a family tradition. Every Sunday one of her parents would take her.

Hermione loved it. It was probably her favourite time of the week, especially when her parents took her to the library afterwards. Ever since she had learnt to read she had always loved the way she could immerse herself in a book and forget about everything around her.

They reached the park and as per usual her mother sat with all the other watchful parents. Hermione rushed to the swings. They were her favourite piece of equipment. It was the closest thing she had ever got to flying. The thrill of the big graceful rise and then the quick fall invigorated her. She imagined she were a bird, soaring through the sky, as light and free as air.

She hoped they weren't all taken. A lot of other kids liked the swings as well; there was usually a big queue.

However today all the swings were completely empty, all except one.

He struck quite an odd and impressive figure, sitting there lightly rocking back and forth, against the grey overcast sky. Hermione could understand why the other children were giving him and the rest of the swing set a wide berth. She herself had a sudden desire to go and play elsewhere, but stubborn as she was, she had an unsurpassable urge to talk to him.

She edged forward curiously. With each step she took the nagging thoughts telling her to turn and run got louder and harder to ignore. She kept on pushing on though, and by the time she was a couple of metres away from the boy she could see him quite clearly.

Up close he did not seem as intimidating or threatening as he had far away. He was slight and pale, about her age, and had the prettiest hair she had ever seen. It was a sleek platinum blonde, with bangs that flopped over his eyes. It almost looked as though he had styled it that way, to hide his soul from view.

All in all, apart from the strange, black, dress-type one piece he was wearing, he looked like a normal kid. The most beautiful kid she had ever seen, but a kid nonetheless.

However when she looked past his beauty she realised he was quite a depressing sight. He was slumped over on the swing, his eyes downcast and his pale, pink lips set in a hard straight line.

Yet even in this defeated position he still had a certain regal feel about him. It was like he thought, actually more like he knew, he was better than everyone else. She began to feel unsettled around him. A bit of the fear she had felt when she'd first seen him returned. The nagging voice began to resurface.

She shook her head trying to clear her mind. She did not want to just turn and run, she wanted to actually talk to this boy, find out why he looked so sad. But the voice was getting louder, weighing her to the spot.

She took a deep breath, preparing herself, and took a step forward and then another. With every step she took the voice got louder and her feet got heavier.

Then when she took her fourth step her whole body went rigid. The voice was screeching in her ear. She was literally glued to the ground. She could not go back and she could not go forward. It was like the boy had a force field around him or something.

Of course that possibility just made her more curious to find out who the boy was. Plus she really wanted to swing, and being an only child, she was accustomed to getting what she wanted.

So she gathered all her willpower, focused all her concentration on her goal and managed to lift her foot off the ground.

It felt like she was walking through tar. Her muscles were screaming out in protest, wanting her to stop. Yet she kept on going and finally succeeded in taking a step. As soon as her foot hit the ground the voice stopped and her feet went back to their normal weight. She let out a sigh of relief and wiped off the sweat trickling down from her brow.

However she did not get to rest for long because no sooner had she got her emotions back in check was she flooded with despair. She felt scared and alone. Hopelessness spread through her.

Her bottom lip began to tremble and she felt a large lump arise in her throat. She looked up at the boy. He looked so lifeless and defeated. And that's when she realized where these new found feelings of anguish were coming from.

They were coming from him, the unassuming boy on the swings.

She didn't understand how or why she could suddenly sense his feelings, but she could. She frowned at her strange revelation.

No, surely it could not be true. Things like this simply didn't happen in the real world. They belonged in fantasy books about dragons and warlocks and witches. Yet she knew her intuition was correct.

And it scared her; it scared her more than anything. Yet it also made her all the more determined to find out about the boy.

XXX

She walked up to the swing next to the boy and collapsed upon it. She let out an exasperated huff, and then turned to face him.

He did not stir, completely ignoring her presence, continuing to sit in the same slumped, depressing position. Hermione frowned; she didn't like to be ignored. She cleared her throat,

"Hello" she said. No response.

"I said hello." Nothing.

"You know it's very rude to ignore someone"

The boy huffed, his breath blowing a portion of his silvery hair out of his eyes, and turned his swing ever so slightly to the left so that Hermione was looking at the back of his head.

"Boy, why are you crying?" Hermione asked, her brown eyes widened in concern. The boy whipped his head around to glare at her.

"I'm not crying" he sneered, but his voice was thick with tears.

"Yes you are. Just now when you huffed I saw a tear escaping your eye. And look, you can still see the little watery track it made." She said reaching out her hand to trace the trail. He jerked his head back so quickly Hermione was sure he must have gotten whiplash.

"Don't touch me!" He spat, "And I'm **not** crying!" However at the moment he gave a great sniff.

"Sure you not crying" said Hermione sarcastically "I really believe you". The boy gave her another glare but chose not to respond. "Well, anyway, I'm Hermione Granger. What's your name?" Again the boy didn't respond.

Hermione was growing annoyed now. Who did this boy think he was, ignoring her like that? He was just being rude and her mother always told her there was no excuse for rudeness.

"I asked you what your name was" She said through gritted teeth "So tell me!" The boy looked at her and smirked. Her anger was amusing him, which of course, only made her madder.

"Didn't your parents ever teach you it's rude to ignore people? They mustn't be very good parents then." She spat.

This sure wiped the smirk off his face. She must've hit a nerve because his eyes flashed dangerously and when he spoke it was in a low growl.

"My parents are good parents and they love me. My parents are ten times better than your stupid, smiling Muggle parents, even if mine are always yelling and fighting.", His voice broke at the end of the sentence and it took a little pause for him to regain composure, "You are just a stupid Muggle like your parents, you don't even deserve to sit next to me so you definitely don't deserve to know my name!" Then he turned his swing around so his back was facing her again.

Hermione wanted to ask what a Muggle was, but she could hear the boys muffled sniffling starting up, indicating he had succumbed to tears again. Suddenly she felt very bad for what had just happened. She had teased a boy to tears.

But she was being stupid. It was his own fault for being rude to her. All she had tried to do was start a conversation; he was the one who so blatantly ignored her.

And he had insulted both her and her family by calling them "stupid Muggles". Although she didn't quite understand the word Muggle, she understood the word stupid, and by the tone of his voice she would bet that 'Muggle' held about the same amount of weight as stupid did, possibly more.

Anyway, she was sure that she wasn't going to get another civilised word out of him today and the depressing air that he was omitting was starting to get to her. So she stood up and marched over to her mother without so much as a backwards glance at the boy on the swings.

True, today hadn't been her favorite day at the park, but at least her mum would be happy. She knew exactly which books she wanted to get from the library.

**A.N So this is the first chapter of my second story. I plan on this being a multi-chaptered story. **

**I am a very _very _slow typer so I don't know when you can expect the next installment. This first chapter has been in the making for about a year. So yesh. Also I tend to get bored with a story and start writing a different one and not come back to the other for agesss. Hence why this chapter took so long. **

**Thanks to anyone who reviewed or favourited "Worth the Wait" I love yous :)) I will try update soon but I can't guarantee anything. Sorry. **

**Toodles, Bella ;)**


	2. Chapter 2: An Unexplicable Disapearance

****The Boy on the Swings****

**Bella Gilies**

**Chapter 2: An Unexplicable Disapearance**

The following week Hermione approached the park on a mission. She needed to see the unnamed boy again.

She knew it was possible, or probable really, that he wouldn't be there. After all she'd never seen him there before and after the way she had treated him last time would he want to come back?

She held her breath as her and her father rounded the corner to the park. Praying she would see him. They had some unfinished business to attend to.

He was there. In exactly the same place and position as last week.

She exhaled deeply and clutched the heavy book bag she was carrying tighter. Despite his insistence, she had refused to let her father help her with it.

They walked up to the park gates. They were lovely and old, decorated in gold paint that was peeling slightly and lions sitting on the top of the supporting pillars. Although Hermione had always admired the grand old gates, she had always found them a little bit pointless. There was no fence around the park, so why was a gate needed when you could easily walk around it?

Her ponderings were interrupted by her father offering her his hand. Instinctively she took it. He looked down at her and smiled.

"You ready for this, Kiddo?" He asked her in what he called his 'mafia accent'. He always said this to her. When she asked him why he told her it was because when she was younger she used to be afraid of going to park and this was the only thing that would get her through the gates.

But when she asked her mother why he always said this, her mother just laughed and said it was because her father liked being an idiot and that Hermione had always loved the park.

Hermione agreed with her mother.

However she still responded to her father the same as she always did. Although this time it was a little more enthusiastic.

"Let's do it!"She squealed, and they walked through the useless gates hand in hand.

Her father marched her over to the bench before letting go of her hand and sitting down.

"You know the drill." He said. He then unfurled his newspaper and was seen no more. She dumped her book bag and turned around.

Her eyes caught a flash of something grey. She frowned and narrowed her eyes at the place where they had been situated. However now she was simply looking at the blond top of a pale boys head. His eyes having been dropped to the ground the second she'd caught him looking.

She looked over her shoulder to see if her father was still engrossed in his newspaper. Being satisfied that he was, she stalked over to the swing set. Her mouth was set in a line of determination and her hands were clenched at her sides.

Once again she found that the nearer she got to the swings the louder the mysterious nagging voice got and the heavier her feet seemed to weigh. And once again, using all her willpower, she managed to get past the repelling force field to collapse upon the vacant swing and be consumed by the horrible feelings of hopelessness. Her presence was greeted by silence, not that she expected anything else.

"You know, it's rude to stare" she said.

He looked up at her frowning. "I wasn't staring"

"Yeah you were, I saw you looking at me when I turned around just before"

His cheeks tinged pink. He thought she hadn't seen.

"I wasn't staring." He repeated.

"Sure, sure. You know if your gonna stare at me you could at least tell me your name" She said.

He glared at her; there was venom in his gaze now.

"I wasn't STARING! And you don't deserve to know my name."

"I do so deserve to know your name! You know my name."

"Yeah but my name is better than your name. It's from Latin, not like your common Muggle name. Hermione, what is that? A disease?"

She glared at him, but bid herself not to lose her temper, he wasn't worth that.

"I think you mean it originated from the Latin language, not 'from Latin'. That doesn't even make sense. Learn proper English. Also a lot of names originated from the Latin language. It's not even special!"

"Bet yours didn't."

"No my name originated from Greece." She wasn't sure if that was true or not but it sounded good, "And what does the word Muggle even mean. I looked it up in seven different dictionaries and I couldn't find it anywhere. I think you just made it up because your too stupid to think of a good enough insult to throw at me." She expected him to get offended by this and get all huffy like he did with everything else she said. But he didn't.

"Well of course you couldn't find it in _your _dictionaries. They would have been Muggle dictionaries. Muggle dictionaries don't have the word 'Muggle' in them. Jeez, you Muggles sure are stupid" He smirked.

_Keep Calm, Keep Calm_ she repeated to herself. If there was one thing she hated being called it was stupid.

"That doesn't even make sense. Why wouldn't a Muggle dictionary, have the word 'Muggle' in it! That's like an apple pie not having apples in it. It's dumb. "

"Whatever." He said smirking.

She frowned at him. He was enjoying this. In fact, the unexplained depressed feelings that had been enveloping her ever since she sat down seemed to have nearly completely faded. But she didn't like it. If he had to ridicule her to feel happy she thought she'd prefer to have him crying again.

"So, where's your parents?" She asked. The effect this seemingly innocent sentence had on the boy was instantaneous. His shoulders slumped, his head bowed and she was nearly crushed by the intensity of the returning feelings of dread. He chose to ignore her; this seemed like a favorite evasion technique for him.

"Well!" She asked, but the venom was slipping from her voice. She wasn't a mean person and although it did feel good to be one up on the boy, she knew she was hurting him. Her mother always said "If you can't say anything right, don't say anything at all" and here she was picking on a sad, crushed boy.

Well, he wasn't that crushed. He still had plenty of fight in him as he had just proven. However at the moment it seemed like he was just an empty shell.

She sighed and did something she knew she'd regret in a moment when the boy turned nasty again and used it against her. "I'm sorry I asked about your parent's I understand that it's a soft spot for you." she mumbled in a sing song voice.

He looked up at her with a puzzled expression, as if he didn't quite understand what she was saying.

"What?" he asked confused. She wasn't sure if he actually hadn't heard her or if he was just making her say it again so he could laugh at her. Not that she had actually seen that happen in real life before but she had seen it in movies and read about it in books and he seemed like the sort of conniving person who would do something like that.

"I'm sorry, but I'm not saying it again." She said in a clearer voice. He was still looking at her with the expression of a stunned mullet, not quite comprehending what she was saying. She was getting impatient now. "Look haven't you ever been apologised to before?" she asked exasperated, throwing her hands up in the air to illustrate her annoyance.

"No." His voice was so quiet and timid that she almost didn't register he had spoken. She swallowed hard, suddenly feeling very embarrassed and awkward.

"Oh" she said just as quietly.

There was a silence then, one that seemed to stretch for days. She stole a glance at the boy. His cheeks were flushed a dull pink but even that little colour stood out against his pale complexion. He was looking down at his shoes, his eyes staring without really seeing. His lips were also flushed pink and set in a line. But he didn't look sad or angry or even confused. He just looked thoughtful.

The silence was broken by a car back firing in the distance. The boys head jerked up, his body suddenly tense. He looked at her, first wearily then angrily.

"What are you still doing here?" He scowled. His change of mood caught her off guard.

"I... I...Well I just thought that.. that" she faltered at the look on his face.

"You just thought what? Well I don't care what you're thinking, you're a dirty Muggle and I don't want you here. Leave!"He roared. She jumped up but didn't move.

"But I don't know what…"

"I don't care! LEAVE!" He yelled at her.

And although she didn't want to leave (she still had so many questions to ask) she found her feet being uprooted from the spot s and her being powerless to stop them from walking away from the swings and back to where her father sat, still hidden by his newspaper.

She tried to turn around to look at the boy, to figure out how he was making her do what he wanted, but she found she couldn't turn her head. By the time she was back to her father and released from the strange force she turned to find he was gone.

She squinted at the place where he had been, thinking that it could be just an illusion, like that of magicians her parents had taken her to see at the theatre, but he had truly disappeared. Vanished without a trace.

She huffed, after all that she still hadn't gotten any of the answers she was looking for. Next time she would make sure he answered her questions.

**A.N So I finally updated, sorry it took so long, but I did warn ya's ;). Um again I can't guarantee when I will update. So just keep checking every few months. Thanks if you reviewed my other chapter. ::))**


	3. Chapter 3: Questions

****The Boy On The Swings****

**Bella Gilies  
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**Chapter 3: Questions  
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Jean Granger surveyed her daughter over her forkful of potato. Something about Hermione was off. She was frowning broodingly at her plate, angrily chasing her peas around with her knife. It was by no means a new expression for the young girl. She had worn it many times before. She was an intuitive child always reading or studying some new material. Just this morning, for the second week in a row, she had come home from the library with a bulging book bag full of dictionaries which she had spent the day poring over, trying to find one word or another.

However this time there was something different about her gaze. There was confusion in Hermione's eyes rather than just determination. Jean's daughter was genuinely puzzled. A very rare occurrence for her. Hermione was always so sure of herself, so convinced that she'd find an answer that she didn't really worry if the solution wasn't found straight away.

'Hermione dear, how was your day?' Jean asked, hoping to maybe get a glimpse into her daughter's labyrinth of a mind.

'Oh, good' Hermione muttered vaguely but it was clear she was still preoccupied

'How about now? You feeling alright Babe?' Jean asked.

'I'm fine.' Hermione said rolling her eyes.

'But you haven't touched your Kiev and that's your favourite part.' Jean coaxed.

'I don't want garlic breath' Hermione shrugged.

'Actually now that you mention it, she has been looking a bit peaky ever since our lovely outing this morning', Henry said mock serious. 'You okay 'Mione. Oh lord I think she has a temperature! Jeanie call the ambulance! She's burning up!' He mimed feeling her forehead then yanking back his hand as if he'd been burnt. Hermione squealed with laughter.

'Stop it Dad!' She giggled as Henry started tickling her. 'Stop it, stop it!'

'Who's Dad? I am The Tickle Monster!' Henry growled

'No Dad!' Hermione squealed, then suddenly serious, 'Dad! Stop It!'

'Aw what's the matter Hermy-Wormy?' Henry asked pulling an over exaggerated sad face.

'I'm full!' Hermione declared. She pushed her plate away, stood up and stalked off to her room.

Henry looked at Jean dumbfounded. 'Well you shouldn't have pushed her buttons. You knew she was already fired up but you couldn't help yourself. 'Jean scolded

Henry grumbled something incoherent and continued to eat his dinner. He spent the rest of the meal sulking. 'Just like a child', thought Jean, and people wondered where Hermione got her pigheadedness from.

OOO

Later that evening, when all the dishes had been washed and packed away, Jean sat alone at the kitchen table. She was immersed in one of her lifestyle magazines. The royal family had been acting up again it seemed. She almost missed the quiet approaching footsteps of her daughter. She looked up. Hermione was still wearing her puzzled frown from dinner.

"Ah, am I about to find out what was behind your sullen mood at dinner?" Jean inquired.

Hermione didn't say anything; she just frowned at her mother and then sat down at the table inspecting her fingernails in a thoughtful silence. Jean knew there was no point in pushing her daughter on the subject. Hermione would talk when she was ready.

Sure enough, just as Jean was finishing the article, Hermione spoke up.

"Mum," she began tentatively, "Why are boys so confusing?"

Jean nearly choked on her own spit. This was definitely not what she was expecting to come out of her ten year olds mouth.

"Is there a err.. reason for this inquiry?" Jean asked trying to keep her voice casual when really she was freaking out inside. Hermione was definitely too young to be worrying about boys! She still hadn't lost all her baby teeth.

"Oh not really, just curious" Hermione muttered vaguely. Jean peered at her daughter attentively, Hermione wasn't meeting her eyes, a sure fire way to tell she was hiding something.

"Well Hermione, boys are very confusing creatures. I myself still don't understand them. However the important thing to remember is to just be yourself. If they can't accept you for you then they're not worth bothering with."

Hermione screwed up her face. "I don't want to _marry_ one" she said indignantly.

"Oh.." said Jean allowing herself to be a little relieved, "Then why the sudden interest?"

Hermione sighed in a resigned sort of way, "Fine then if you must know, today at the park I was talking to one."

"Uh..huh.. And...?"

"Well he was very confusing, he seemed very sad and sullen. So I tried to comfort him, it worked for a little while but then he got really angry again and started calling me names..."

"Oh... Well he must've just been angry. Sometimes people say things they don't mean when they're angry."

"Yes I know _that_. The words he was using were confusing. He called me a Muggle and he said it like it was a really bad word. But I've never heard it before and I can't find it in a dictionary." Hermione was slipping back into her own personal thought bubble, Jean could tell from her puckered brow. "Have you ever heard it before?" Hermione asked.

"No sorry Honey," Jean said,"It sounds sort of like a fungus? But I really wouldn't know. It sounds to me like the boy was probably just making up words to intimidate you. I don't think you should worry about it too much. Now come here" Jean held out her arms. Hermione walked into them but her body was tense and when Jean wrapped her arms around her she didn't respond. Jean could tell Hermione wasn't satisfied with her response. She always wanted a concrete answer.

"C'mon sweetie, I'm serious. Don't give it anymore thought. He doesn't sound like a very nice boy if he's calling you names." Jean released Hermione from her embrace and tucked a stray tendril of her untamed mass of hair behind her ear.

"Now I think it's about time you go to bed. Huh? What'll you say? Goodnight gorgeous." Jean planted a soft kiss on her daughter's cheek.

"Goodnight Mum." Hermione sighed accepting the fact that the conversation was over for now.

However as she headed towards the door to her lounge room to kiss her father goodnight she couldn't help but think of the smugness in the boys tone when he called her a Muggle.

And how was it possible to just disappear as he had? Surely he hadn't had time to jump in a car and drive away, Hermione doubted he would even be able to reach the road in the time it took her to reach the gate and look back. The area surrounding the playground was just plain, flat ground, there wasn't even a tree or bush that he could've climbed under or behind to hide from view and although he did seem like the kind of boy to play tricks on her she just really couldn't figure out any plausible or logical way how this particular disappearing act could have been pulled off.

She was usually very good at figuring these things out but there was something about this boy that stumped her.

Perhaps her eyes had just been playing tricks on her? Maybe he had, in fact, never left the swing and by a trick of light she had just managed to miss seeing him. She had heard of such things happening before when the eyes were tired or the mind was focused on other things. However last night she had gotten a full eight hours sleep and today she didn't recall her mind being focused on anything other than the peculiarity of the boy on the swings.

Hermione concluded that he had probably simply just moved onto another piece of equipment when she wasn't looking. Yes, this was the most feasible solution. Still she could see that she was missing something. Somewhere at the back of her mind something was niggling at her confidences. A flaw in the logic, threatening to destroy the laws of reason that she had held dear for so long.

It wasn't until she was lying in bed that she finally managed to decipher her inner turmoil. Even if the boy had simply moved when she wasn't looking, why could she feel his emotions? How did this boy have the ability to make her feel what he felt? All his despair, all his hatred and all his uncertainty's, how was it possible for her to sense these?

For Hermione was sure now that's what she was experiencing when she sat near him. That was why the other children kept their girth. She remembered the resistance she had met when she had first tried to get near him. Somehow he was doing that too! But how? That was what she wanted to know and the only person who could tell her that was him. Somehow she had to gain his trust, but how could she do that when he wouldn't even tell her his name? She huffed, frustrated.

There was always an answer for everything, always. Even if it wasn't clear now, Hermione was certain she'd find out. She just had to hatch a plan.

**A.N Really, reeaally sorry I haven't posted in a year and a bit :( I'm bad I know. I just got stuck on what to write next. I know where I want this story to go, I'm just having trouble _getting_ there. I'm really sorry for any inconsistances, it has been a while since I wrote the last few chapters and although I did read over them like a zillion times it's hard to get in the groove once you're out of it. Hopefully it won't take as long to update next time.**


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